Here is
a report of what I did on the weekend. Saturday was cloudy and drizzly, which
made hiking in Hveragerði kind of a stupid idea. This is what I did all the
same. Stacey had some friends over from America and we all went to walk up
Reykjadalur to a geothermal river, which we ambitiously intended to swim in.
Stacey had done it last year and said it was really good. The weather was much
better then, though. We were basically walking in a cloud, and it was super
muddy and wet. We had to take our shoes off to cross the river at one point,
and it was much less fun than last weekend (although the water was a lot
warmer) because instead of hot, dry moss at the far bank there was just more
cold mud and no chance of your feet drying. We got to the swimming bit, got
changed in the cold mist and duly went into the river. It was tepid rather than
hot, I would say, and too shallow really. Not one of my best geothermal
experiences in Iceland. It did look as though it would be a nice walk in the
sunshine, though, and the river would probably be more fun then too. I'm not
writing Reykjadalur off - it clearly was not at its best last Saturday.
Then of
course it was the Eurovision finals - the party this year was at Stacey's flat.
I was pleased because she gets the BBC so we could watch the Graham Norton
commentary, which is much better than the Icelandic coverage. I thought Italy
was the best, but to be fair I was losing a lot of my critical faculties as the
evening progressed. I was more drunk than I have been in a long time. Probably
using an entire mini-bottle of vodka in one drink was not the best idea, and
unfortunately my countries for the drinking game that goes with the
points-awarding section were Iceland and Serbia, who did OK and very well
respectively. I had a good time talking to Stacey's work friends, and Ahmad and
Thomas were there for a bit as I recall. After the Eurovision we went downtown,
to B5. This is not somewhere I would have chosen to go, and it's definitely not
somewhere I'm going again. 900 kr. for a beer! And outrageously an ordinary
Tuborg is the same price as Tuborg Classic. A short time after we arrived there
I managed to destroy my SIM card. I'm not sure how, but it got onto the screen
where it asks for your PIN. I kept pressing the button with "O" on it
rather than "0", and after a while it started to suspect that I
didn't know my PIN and asked for my PUK instead. I became distressed at the
non-functionality of my phone and decided to go home to resolve this, strewed
the contents of my "important pieces of paper" file all over the
bathroom floor, and found the PUK from my bank account. I entered this number
over and over again (which of course has nothing to do with my phone) until the
SIM card gave up and committed suicide. So now I have to go to Síminn and get a
new one. I suppose this will teach me a lesson or something? Although probably
not.
Sunday
was sunny and lovely. As is traditional in good weather in Reykjavík, Grétar
and I went down to Austurvöllur (after I had recovered from the worst of the
hangover), where we met Helgi and lounged around on the grass. We got some
sandwiches, I did some colouring in in a little Paddington Bear colouring book
that I found at work, was just dozing off in the sunshine when I heard some
sort of commotion. Looked up and there was a woman completely off her face,
definitely something other than alcohol involved, just going nuts. She had
apparently taken a disliking to a group of young men drinking cans on the wall
and was screaming abuse at them, spitting on them, hurling herself at them.
After a while a friend of hers turned up (also smashed) and wrestled her to the
ground in a strangle hold whilst she was kicking him and shouting. Eventually
the police came along and arrested the woman, then came back to arrest the man
as well. Then a bit later two of the alcoholics in residence (there are always
a few on the benches in Austurvöllur) got up and pushed another sleepy-looking
alcoholic into a bin so hard that the bin fell over and the hapless róni just
lay there floundering like an upturned turtle until some people pulled him to
his feet. So there was plenty to watch. I suppose the sunshine puts the drunks
in high spirits just like the rest of us.
Then we
went to Ingólfstorg, which is the skater and motorbike square. We got ourselves
some ice-creams and sat and watched the kids fall off their skateboards again
and again, completely failing to get any combo bonuses. At one point a stark
naked man skateboarded right across the square in front of us - I assume some
sort of dare. In the evening we went to see Men In Black III at the Háskólabíó,
which was a mixed bag to be honest, but all in all a good weekend I
think.
Today
is Whit Monday, so I don't have to go in to work until 12.30, which I did not
realise until I had walked to the bus stop this morning. Nice to have the
morning off, though - I just got back from a cycle to the Seltjarnarnes
lighthouse. I think actually maybe I will cycle to work as well, the weather is
so great. Plus I have a helmet now so that I am less likely to die at the hands
of a Reykjavík motorist, "youth" size from Hagkaup, with red flames
on it and everything. Ógeðslega flottur sko.
